Earrings
by rollingcows
Summary: Temari is probably the only girl her age without piercings but someone is going to change that. The good stuff's at the back I guess. *controls ShikaTema feels* Originally meant to be a one-shot but I got carried away (I tried).
1. Chapter 1

Earrings never really appealed to Temari. She never understood why girls would spend hours cooing over that stuff. As far as she was concerned, accessories were ridiculously breakable, expensive, impractical for a kunoichi like her and just got in her way, especially earrings.

While she was sure that 99.9% of the girls her age had gotten their ears pierced, Temari didn't bother about it. Why subject herself to pain and discomfort and risk of infection and who knew what else came along with poking a sharp metal needle through her earlobes? Plus, wouldn't earrings give an enemy who snuck close enough the chance to tear them out of her ears and effectively distract her for a few precious moments in battle.

It didn't matter that Kankuro screamed at her in hair-tearing exasperation that no enemy would even be able to get within her sightlines without being blown into oblivion, let alone reach out to grab her ears.

It didn't matter either that she got to know a certain man in Konoha who did wear earrings and actually looked good with them, or that her intense dislike for those potentially magnetic objects was slowly being rubbed away with each day they spent together.

She wasn't going to go near any of those soon, no way was she subjecting herself to unnecessary pain just for earrings, not even if-

"What's so bad about getting your ears pierced?"

Not even if that particular earring-wearing Konoha male was half-heartedly trying to convince her otherwise.

"Nara, for the last time, I absolutely refuse to let a psychotic old woman with a sharp instrument near my precious ears." She growled through clenched teeth.

Shikamaru's ear studs glinted in the sunlight as he turned over to get a better look at the irritated blonde before him. His dark calm eyes met fiery teal ones. How such a peaceful eye colour could contain so much chaos was beyond him. They stayed like that for a while longer, glaring at each other wordlessly before Shikamaru sighed and stood up.

"Let's spar."

"Here? Now?!"

Well this was weird.

"Haven't you been bugging me for a rematch ever since forever? Stand up and fight, troublesome woman."

Temari's eyebrows shot up so high they almost disappeared into the blonde bangs plastered to her forehead. Sure, she had always been demanding a rematch with him, but he'd always call her troublesome then continue to stare at the clouds. It didn't take an IQ of over 200 to figure out that this was definitely a ploy.

She stood up to face him and folded her arms defiantly.

"So what's the catch, genius?"

Shikamaru mirrored her stance. Even with his vacant expression, glee was radiating off every single pore of his body.

"Consequences, woman, consequences. You win this fight and I'll do whatever you want me to for a week. I win, and we'll go together to get your ears pierced first thing next morning. See? I'm even giving you a whole night to mentally prepare yourself."

"Che, don't sound so confident that you'll win, crybaby."

Urgh, she should have known.

She should have known that her pride wouldn't allow her to back out of a fight.

She should have known that the crybaby pineapple knew that as well.

Most importantly, she should have known that he'd been doing some serious training under Tsunade while she was back in Suna.

If Shikamaru didn't wipe that pleased smirk off his face she was going to murder a living thing soon, preferably someone with a pineapple for a head.

"That. Wasn't. Fair." She hissed through gritted teeth and glared at him from the ground, her arms forced into the air in submission. Why oh why did she ever agree to this.

"All's fair in love and war." His face was composed and bored as usual, but a grin was tugging at his lips as he released the jutsu and watched her struggle to her feet. "Well then, what was it that we agreed on previously?"

If looks could kill, the Nara boy would have been rendered completely unrecognizable by needles, kunai and every sharp object in the vicinity. His returning stare was calm and triumphant. He was so going to pay for this one day.


	2. Chapter 2

_She was back in Suna. Somehow Gaara, who was supposed to be busy being the Kazekage, was busy flying kites with Kankuro instead. It didn't make sense at all, but it was interesting to watch Kankuro attack Gaara with his puppets when he let the kite get blown off into the desert sky. She plopped down on the scalding sand against her better instincts. The harsh desert sun bore into her skin. She had long gotten used to the intense heat in Suna, but somehow this was becoming increasingly unbearable. It was as if the rays of the sun were getting hotter and hotter-_

Temari's eyes flew open and she almost fell out of bed as the strong, warm rays of the Konoha sun hit her full in the face. She blinked and turned her gaze to the parted purple curtains.

Wait a second.

She never left the curtains open like that when she slept. She'd always preferred complete darkness and open curtains made her feel uneasy.

Which could only mean that-

"Rise and shine, woman." A voice drawled lazily from a corner of her room.

Temari flew out of bed so fast she crashed into a cupboard and almost toppled it. Cursing, she held on to the cupboard for support before turning towards the Konoha shinobi.

"What. Are. You. Doing. Here." She almost screamed at him, half crouched in a defensive position.

He managed to suppress a chuckle. Her hair was out of her usual four ponytails and she was in wrinkled purple pajamas. Even though she was probably as cuddly as an atomic bomb at this moment, he had to admit, she was an adorable mess in the morning. But he was never going to tell her that. He'd die. Way too troublesome.

Instead, he yawned and stretched out lazily on a chair nearby.

"It was troublesome enough to wake up so early in the morning. Hurry up woman, today's the day you keep up your side of the bargain."

"That fight was unfair Nara, UNFAIR. No way in hell am I going-"

"So you're chickening out when you were the one who agreed to the fight? How disappointing."

"I-I'm NOT chickening out you- ARGH YOU ARE GOING TO PAY FOR THIS!"

A few fan-waving moments and broken vases later, a very disgruntled Temari was sullenly following behind a smug Shikamaru.

"Oi."

"What?"

"Can we do this some other day?"

"No."

"I promised Tenten that I'd train with her today."

"She'll understand."

"How about I treat you to lunch instead?"

"Sure, after you get your ears pierced."

After a moment of resentful silence, he stopped dead in his tracks and narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously.

"Tell me, Temari, what _is_ your issue with piercings?"

She winced inwardly. She knew she wasn't exactly doing a great job of masking her evasions but she didn't want to answer that question either. So in response she stared defiantly at a bird hopping on the ground.

Understanding and disbelief gleamed in Shikamaru's eyes as he stared at the rigid form beside him.

"Don't tell me… you're actually scared of them-"

"NO!"

"Then?"

She glowered and stormed off.

"You are scared, aren't you." He whispered in shock, keeping up with her pace.

Well he wasn't to blame. Who knew that a hardcore fearless kunoichi like her could be scared of a tiny harmless needle? This woman was interesting.

"This has got nothing to do with fear, Nara. Don't put me in the same category as you." Temari was pointedly staring ahead, refusing to meet his eye.

"Don't you break some bones and tear some flesh every other day? It's just a needle you know."

"If it's a mission or training then that's necessary pain. Poking yourself with a needle for aesthetic purposes though, is unnecessarily painful."

He didn't bother to point out to her that the pain from ear-piercing lasted for less than 5 seconds. Instead he abruptly grabbed her arm and pulled her to face him. Shocked teal eyes met unreadable dark ones.

"Woman, I guarantee you that this pain will be absolutely necessary."


	3. Chapter 3

Temari did get her ears pierced in the end.

Even if she had spent the rest of the journey to the shop cursing so much she could have written a dictionary; or if she had menacingly grabbed Shikamaru by the collar just outside the shop and hissed at him that it had better be worth it; or if she had almost crushed the stool she was sitting on when the needle slid through her earlobes. The deed was done. Those ears were finally pierced after a long 24 years.

The young chirpy woman who did the piercings had bravely gone where no one else had managed to go before, and survived it magnificently. Still in the pink of health with all four limbs intact, she was now enthusiastically instructing Temari on caring for her newly pierced ears.

Though there was still that one issue that Temari had with her new piercings.

"What," She slowly turned away from the mirror before her in preparation to burn the Nara accompanying her, "is this abomination?" The girl was still prattling on, oblivious to the murderous energy around her customer. She then exclaimed something about cleaning solution and timely disappeared into the store room.

Temari might not have made such a fuss if the ear studs were normal-looking and subtle. The new little things on her ears, however, were anything but that. They were ridiculously cute-looking hearts in an obnoxiously loud shade of bright pink. And they were sparkly. She had to breathe in deeply a few times to stop herself from breaking the mirror and wiping the entire area off the map.

Shikamaru shrugged nonchalantly in response to Temari's barely restrained agitation. "Not my fault you picked the studs with your eyes closed, woman."

"Some warning would have been nice."

"I thought the pink would bring out the colour in your cheeks- _thud _- owww."

When the girl came back out again, the atmosphere in the shop had changed slightly but she didn't find anything wrong with the situation. Perhaps it was the way that the dark-haired boy was rubbing his head gingerly, or that the pretty blonde winced when she told her that the studs had to stay in for a month before she could change them. But other than that nothing seemed to be out of place. She waved cheerfully at them as they left the shop.

Unfortunately for Temari, shortly after she pierced her ears, she had to rush back to Suna for an emergency meeting. Everywhere she walked, people gave her weird stares. The moment she strode into the meeting room, there was a sudden hush before a normally solemn Gaara burst out into peals of laughter and everyone struggled to hide their giggles. Kankuro turned the house upside down in search of a camera to snap a photo of the precious pink evidence before running out to buy champagne, saying he wanted to mark the 'joyous occasion'. Gaara was seriously considering declaring the day a holiday for everyone. Kankuro wrote a five minute song for her. Both of them decided to be funny and invited their teacher over for a party to celebrate the piercing of Temari's ears. She swore she could have killed herself after mutilating them all.

But contrary to her beliefs, Temari did survive that one month with the girly pink earrings. Gaara and Kankuro were holding up pretty well too, albeit having a few noticeable bumps on their heads by the time Temari left for Konoha again.

As Temari neared the familiar gates of her destination, she immediately spotted a spiky-haired thing leaning casually against them. The thing yawned and sighed before ambling over to join her.

"Still a sloth, I see."

"Welcome back, woman."

Temari was dying to get a pair of new earrings as soon as the one month was up and she was safely in Konoha where no one would judge her. But the second thing to greet her after Shikamaru was an urgent summons to meet the Hokage and she was once again squished under a seemingly never-ending pile of work to do. The insignificant errand of changing earrings was thus flung into a dark, abandoned corner of Temari's mind with immediate effect.

Being her escort slash partner, of course Shikamaru was always with her. He patiently sorted through tedious paperwork while she figuratively tore her hair out over agreements that were so unfathomably pointless she had no idea why they were even written. It was definitely a given that he noticed the surprising continued presence of the offending entities on Temari's ears. But being a wise young shinobi with his life before him, no mention of it was made to Temari. She was now living a life of meetings in the morning, paperwork in the afternoon and sorting through important documents at night. It had been at least three months since Temari was back in Konoha. _Three_. How anyone could survive such an insane routine was incomprehensible to Shikamaru. That crazy troublesome woman needed a break, whether she wanted it or not. Besides, he had something else he needed to do too.


	4. Chapter 4

"Where _is_ that crybaby?" Temari grumbled, shuffling the stack of paper in her hands. Usually Shikamaru would be waiting outside her door for her in the morning, and they'd have breakfast together before heading for yet another boring meeting. But today had been the exception. She'd opened the door to find an untidily scrawled note with the author nowhere in sight. Being by herself for the first time in a long time, she'd lost her appetite for anything fancy and had chewed on a piece of bread instead. She felt a growing sense of dread towards the long meeting which she'd most probably have to attend alone. He'd better have a good reason for abandoning her like that.

Half a day later, Temari staggered out of the meeting room. She had been the only young person in the midst of wrinkled old men and shriveled up old ladies. It was horrendous. She silently cursed Shikamaru and thanked whoever it was that arranged such terrible meetings that there were no more of those to go through that day.

She was heading back to start on yet another pile of paperwork when she caught a brief glimpse of a black spiky ponytail heading towards her.

"Where have you been, Nara." There was a hint of accusation in her voice. The dark-haired man looked uncomfortable just for a fraction of a second before his usual bored expression took over. He leisurely matched his pace with hers. "There was a whole bunch of troublesome stuff I had to deal with this morning, sorry."

Temari saw the fleeting nervousness in his face and had narrowed her eyes at the vague explanation. Having had her brain cells massacred by the earlier meeting though, she decided not to pursue the matter. She'd find out soon enough.

There was a brief silence before Shikamaru suddenly grabbed her hand and dragged her off in another direction. That woke her up from her hazy stupor immediately and she resisted the sudden change in path.

"Where are we going?! I still have paperwo-"

"You need a break woman, stop being troublesome and just come with me."

She allowed him to continue leading her to his intended destination, trying her best to ignore the stares they were getting from the people on the street. The more they walked, the less people they saw, and eventually they ended up in a secluded little clearing from where they had a majestic view of Konoha and of course, the vast sky with fluffy little clouds drifting everywhere.

"You'd better be helping me with my work later or I'm so going to kill you for this." She grumbled under her breath, plopping down on the grass next to him.

He stared intensely at the clouds before murmuring, "… for the rest of my life."

She stopped fiddling with a blade of grass and wheeled around to face him.

"What?!"

He promptly turned pink and Temari's jaw dropped. The pineapple had cried before her and that she could still handle. But blushing? All she wanted to do right now was to scream and run away in the most un-Temari way.

But she didn't.

He awkwardly thrust into her hands a small purple box and she threw him a questioning glance before cracking it open. The quiet gleam of amethyst shone from within dark circles of onyx. Sitting innocently in the velvety folds were earrings.

"It's troublesome as hell but I wouldn't mind working with you for the rest of my life."

Shikamaru sneaked a peek at Temari, who was still staring at the object in her hands. All her muscles were tense and scariness surrounded her like a bubble. He froze.

There was a moment of tense silence before Temari started laughing so hard she almost fell over. The pleasant ringing tones danced about in the still afternoon air. Shikamaru stared at her in shock.

"Normal people don't react that way to a wedding proposal you know." He muttered petulantly, trying not to look wounded.

"Normal people go down on their knees and propose with a ring, Nara." She was shaking with laughter, the bright teal of her eyes gaining a crystal-like quality as they brimmed with tears of mirth. "How did I ever end up with an abnormal weirdo like you?"

"Rings are too mainstream." Red was slowly creeping up his neck to accompany the pink in his cheeks. Why did he even bother to kick himself into doing this sort of thing it was so embarrassing so troublesome so-

Two pink earrings fell into Shikamaru's lap and he looked up to see onyx and amethyst glittering subtly against thin pale flesh. She flashed him the fearless grin he loved so much.

"Too bad we're both abnormal weirdos then."


End file.
